Notably, the helmsman knelt for so long, I started to think he was going to pass out, but after another minute, his friends helped him to his feet, and he stood shakily. He laughed and hugged one of the men closest to him, and they all started talking, pointing at each other, and joking. I couldn’t help but smile, thinking back to simpler times with friends, with Tommy.
“Okay, people, thank you for your help. Now I suggest you get back to whatever you’re supposed to be doing!” I clapped my hands together once, and turned away from the group, walking into the Tower.
“Where are we going, Jax?” Oracle asked me quietly, and I closed my eyes for a second, taking a deep breath.
“No idea, Oracle. I wanted to get out of people’s way while Cai and Oren directed them, and now I’ve realized I should have gone to the captain’s cabin on the ship. I’ll look bloody stupid turning around now, though, so we’re going this way!” I whispered to her, getting a low laugh in return.
“How about we go to the Hall of Memories?” she asked after a minute, throwing it out in such a casual way that immediately made me suspect an ulterior motive.
“Okay…and why are we going there?” I asked looking up to my shoulder where she sat, my eyes being drawn to her obvious assets.
“Behave. You’re not forgiven yet,” she said, smacking me lightly on the top of my head, but I saw the smile at the same time, and I grinned as I set off toward the floor we needed.
Bob clanked along behind me, and as I glanced over, I could see Oren explaining to Cai about the two men that hadn’t sworn loyalty to me. I trusted that he’d get them somewhere to eat and rest.
“Soooo, why are we going to the Hall, then?” I asked again, and this time Oracle answered seriously.
“We need to discuss the skills and spells that are available. You can’t make a decision about who gets what until you know what we actually have.” We reached the Hall and began what can only be considered the second most boring few hours in my life, because I once had to spend a day filling out government tax forms.
After three hours of being told again and again about how great a particular spell or memory-gifted skill was, but that I couldn’t use it, I was done. My head was absolutely fucked, but at least now I had a rough idea of everything we had.
It seemed that we had pretty much one of everything for a lot of skills, which was both awesome and terrible, as the majority of them were around the Expert level. I sat considering things for a while before asking Oracle about it to make sure I had it right.
“So, if I gave, say…Oren that Memory stone on Woodworking, what would happen?” I said, getting a smile in return.
“You know this, Jax. He’s worked with wood on repairs to his ship frequently over the years, so he’s got the basic skill already."
"If you gave it to him, he’d jump two whole levels in knowledge, straight to Journeyman if he were a Novice, but he’d still have to physically level the skill the old-fashioned way to gain the bonuses a true Woodworker would get. If he’d never worked with wood at all, he’d gain the skill, but he’d retain very little of the knowledge, and unless he used it and started to work on wood straight away? He’d start forgetting bits of what he did gain, until eventually, he’d just have vague feelings about how he should do things, but no real clue.”
“And if he was already skilled with it? Like an Apprentice or Journeyman Woodworker?”
“Then he’d probably learn the entire memory, and he’d end up with the knowledge to make anything the creator of the stone knew.” she said, smiling patiently. I sat there for a long time, looking at the memories and trying to not feel cheated again. After a while, I burst out in irritation and got to my feet, grabbing my head in my hands.
“Then it’s all a head-fuck! I mean, come on! I have an entire library of knowledge that can hugely help us, but if we use it, it’s wasted! That one there, the one about magical siege weapons!” I said, gesturing to one that twinkled merrily at the end of the second row. “That could be given to one of the Engineers, and they’d be awesome with it, overhaul the ship’s weapons, and make some really cool shit, but I need the Engineers working on the ship! If I gave it to someone that’s unskilled, someone I can afford to have use it, they’d have a rough idea of how to make a catapult, and that’d be it!”
“Jax, I know why you’re upset, but you have to remember, these are a treasure trove, if you use them right. If you’re offered a free horse, there’s no point in complaining you don’t like the color,” she said, crossing her arms and staring at me in disapproval, and I narrowed my eyes at her.
“Did you just tell me to quit being a whiny bitch?” I asked, and she shrugged, gesturing at all the books and stones around her.
“Jax, just take the time and think, okay? If you get people to start the skills off, learn them for themselves, then you can use the books and memories to make them into amazingly skilled citizens. If you waste them, well… it’s your choice.”
“Fuck. When did you get so wise?” I asked her rhetorically, sitting back down and sighing.
“I didn’t; I’ve been in charge of the magical knowledge here for hundreds of years. I get excited. I don’t know much else about the world is true, but in here? Here, I do know things,
